Python Backup Tool

Zero-dependency file backup utility with incremental backups, compression, and restore.

The Story: A freelance developer lost 3 months of client work when their SSD died. No backups. They rebuilt everything from memory. This tool exists so that never happens to you — or anyone you work with.

Features

• Full & Incremental backups — only backup what changed (saves time + space)
• Compression — ZIP or tar.gz output
• Exclude patterns — skip node_modules, .git, .env automatically
• Restore — restore any backup to any directory
• Backup rotation — automatically clean old backups (keep last N)
• Dry-run mode — preview what would be backed up
• Manifest tracking — every backup includes file hashes for integrity
• Zero dependencies — pure Python 3, nothing to install

Quick Start

# Full backup
python backup_tool.py backup ~/projects ~/backups

# Incremental backup (only changed files)
python backup_tool.py backup ~/projects ~/backups --incremental

# Dry run — see what would be backed up
python backup_tool.py backup ~/projects ~/backups --dry-run

# List all backups
python backup_tool.py list ~/backups

# Restore from backup
python backup_tool.py restore ~/backups/backup_20260325_120000.zip ~/restored

# Clean old backups (keep last 5)
python backup_tool.py cleanup ~/backups --keep 5

Options

backup <source> <dest>
  --incremental, -i    Only backup changed files
  --format, -f         zip (default) or tar.gz
  --exclude, -e        Additional exclude patterns
  --dry-run            Preview without creating backup

restore <archive> <dest>
  Extracts backup to destination directory

list <dest>
  Shows all backups with type, date, files count, size

cleanup <dest>
  --keep, -k N         Keep last N backups (default: 5)

Default Excludes

Automatically skipped: __pycache__, .git, .DS_Store, *.pyc, node_modules, .env, *.tmp, *.log, .venv, venv

Automate with Cron

# Daily incremental backup at 2 AM
0 2 * * * python3 /path/to/backup_tool.py backup /home/user/projects /home/user/backups -i

# Weekly full backup + cleanup on Sunday
0 3 * * 0 python3 /path/to/backup_tool.py backup /home/user/projects /home/user/backups && python3 /path/to/backup_tool.py cleanup /home/user/backups --keep 4

How Incremental Works

1. Scans source directory and calculates MD5 hash for each file
2. Compares against manifest from last backup
3. Only archives files with changed hashes
4. Stores full manifest for next comparison

Use Cases

• Developer workstation backup — protect code, configs, notes
• Server config backup — /etc, cron jobs, nginx configs
• Database dump rotation — backup SQL dumps, keep last 7 days
• CI/CD artifact archival — compress and rotate build outputs
• Photo/media backup — incremental backup of large media folders

More Python Tools

• python-file-organizer — auto-sort files by type
• python-system-monitor — CPU/RAM/disk dashboard
• python-log-analyzer — parse and analyze log files
• awesome-python-automation-2026 — curated list of Python tools

License

MIT — use it, modify it, backup everything.

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